Miracles with Elder Seamons

This random guy took our picture
and wanted to give us dinner

This week was awesome. Elder Seamons is a miracle worker. We had tons of fun and saw a lot of cool successes. Brother Xu will be getting baptized this week, so we're pretty excited for him.

Things are going great. I've really been enjoying my time here in Songshan. To this day, I still don't have a favorite area. They've all been great. We found a ton more new investigators this past week and many of them have potential to be baptized soon.

Sounds like the Lehi 41st ward is doing good. With all the new families I'm sure there's a spirit of unity present. That's always super fun. I can't wait to go camping again. Mom sent all the pictures of the mountains and everything. Let's just say Taiwanese mountains are a little different than Utah mountains. They're special in there own way hahha.

Nothing too new, just a lot of hard work going on. We should be having another Mission Leadership Council this Friday so I'm pumped for the things we'll learn from president Jergensen.


Love you all
Elder Chase Matua

Me and Elder Seamons putting in work

Update from July 18

Xu De An - one of the smartest guys
I know. He's ready for baptism

Lots and lots of good news. I'm super happy for Mica and the steps he's taken to be where he's at right now. I'm so proud of him. I'm thinking before he heads into the MTC, I'll write an email to him, send it to you, and maybe you can print it off and give it to him. I would send him a letter, but I'm scared it wouldn't get there in time. Kingston send me a letter when I first got my call and it was way cool, I wish I could have done that for Mica, but I've procrastinated once again. Tell him sorry about that. I hope he know's how proud I am of him.

Sounds like everything else is going well.

My new comp - Elder Seamons
reppin' Draper, UT

Elder Tan moved to Taoyuan, so now I have a new companion. His name is Elder Seamons from Draper. He's been on island for about a year now. Great missionary and we're excited for the work we're going to do here in Songshan. We worked pretty hard this week. Elder Tan wasn't too happy to leave Songshan, but I know he'll love Taoyuan. Since I've been with Elder Seamons, we have had ONE opportunity to sit down and teach an investigator. All of the other time has been spent finding outside. SUPER exhausting, but we're looking forward to a good week this week. We have an investigator named Brother Xu who is the one closest to Baptism. He's pretty excited. Pray for him.  Besides that, all of our other investigators have been whimpin out.

I'm still loving my time here in Taiwan. I didn't realize how close I was until Elder Tan and I realized we only had 12 weeks until we see each other again. It's coming quicker than ever, I'm getting super nervous, and trying not to think about it at all.


Thanks for all of your love and support
Elder Chase Matua

We hiked up Elephant Mountain

Met this goofy 90-year-old guy George at the train station

Update from July 12

Zone meeting

Elder Tan and I are up early trying to get our emails done before we head the temple, so short email today!

I've been pumped up to be in a typhoon 3 TIMES now... and nothing ever happens. Twice in Taidong, and once last week. They're all just hype. They prepared like it's the end of the world, and then it rains a little bit. Oh well, I'm thankful Heavenly Father blesses us with safety.

Last week was probably one of the most memorable weeks of my mission. We worked so hard. And saw a lot of miracles from it.

Monday night we were out finding and we get a text from the recorder (one of the office elders) for a referral. An investigator named Brother Xu just moved into our area. He's way awesome and is on track for baptism at the end of the month.

Hyrum, a young man preparing
for baptism

To be honest, all we really did this past week was find. We had a blast and found a lot of great new people. 

Things have been going really well. 

Sunday we spoke in sacrament meeting about repentance, and then later that night we taught at a family home evening about the atonement and forgiveness. The longer I'm on my mission, the more I grow a deep love for the Atonement and for our Savior. ALWAYS remembering Him has had a huge impact on my life, and I've seen it happen countless times in the lives of others. One of my favorite scriptures: Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." I'm grateful for the power of the Atonement. 


I love you guys!

Elder Matua
P.S. I'm going to the temple today!!

Late Post - July 3 recap

My good friend Cody
from XiZhi

Well I don't have much to share this week. Just another 7 days of doing the work of the Lord. Gotta love it!

We had MLC on Friday. I always love going to those meetings. Filled with the spirit every time. President Jergensen is such an inspired man. Learning from him has been one of my favorite parts of serving here in Taiwan. It's also such a blessing to know that the Lord is working with us here in Taiwan. This past training was focused on Spiritual Gifts, and lesson preparation. Good stuff. Sister Jergensen taught us that we should ALWAYS be seeking for or developing a specific spiritual gift.

2 weeks ago we met a lady on the street named Elaine. She explained to me how she is not affiliated with a religion, but that she believes God exists. We asked her if she would willing to meet with us to learn more about the thing we share. She said why not? We finally got a chance to meet with her on Saturday. We started sharing more about our purpose as missionaries and a little bit about our families and all that good stuff and she started crying. She let us know that she believes that we are servants of God and that what we shared with her, she really liked. Seeing and feeling the spirit work in our hearts and her's was an awesome experience.

Exchanges with the Jilong Elders
(Tayloer & Weng

Elder Tan and I are looking forward to this week. We feel like we've just been going through the motions and that we could be doing a lot better. So this will be a good turn around week for us. We're ready to be stretched, pushed, pulled, and refined. It's game time!

That's pretty much it from SongShan! I love you all.

UPDATE: Elder Chase Matua is fine after the typhoon warning. He is expected to give us an update tomorrow since they had a temple visit Monday morning when he normally sends his weekly email.


Have a blessed week
Elder Chase Matua

Late post - June 26 recap

Sis Willes reminded me so much of
my mom

We had Zone conference on Wednesday, and it was one of my favorites. We were trained on Pride, Self-mastery, and some teaching tools to help us improve teaching repentance and baptizing converts. I learned a bunch, but one of my favorite parts was they showed us President Uchtdorf's talk from the priesthood session of the October 2010 gen. conference. "Pride and the Priesthood".

"Humility directs our attention and love toward others and to Heavenly Father’s purposes. Pride does the opposite. Pride draws its energy and strength from the deep wells of selfishness. The moment we stop obsessing with ourselves and lose ourselves in service, our pride diminishes and begins to die."

Lunch with the Willes'

So I learned a lot about humility and charity and all that good stuff. It's a way good talk and I invite you guys to read it.

Elder Tan and I had a good week. Time continues to fly.

Monday we were treated to lunch by the Willes Family. What great people they are. We were way excited to see Elder Willes. His younger brother actually goes into the MTC the same time Mica does so that's pretty cool.

 Monday night we met with one of our new investigators. The church is closed on Monday nights, so we took her up on the roof to teach her. At first she said, 'This is a little weird." But at the end of the lesson she said that she really liked being on the roof closer to God and "Feeling it."

A famous person we met on the
street: Zhao Chuan

Tuesday was district meeting up in Neihu again. We had some pretty huge thunder storms this week. and when it wasn't raining, it was boiling hot.

Wednesday we had Zone Conference and English class. These are the kind of days when you wake up at 6:00 am and fall asleep 10 minutes later at 10:30 pm. I'm sure that makes sense.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were just filled with street contacting. All day, Everyday. That gets pretty exhausting, but plenty of opportunities to find that golden investigator.

Sunday we saw some pretty cool miracles. We were out for 4 hours trying to find 3 more new investigators to hit our goal. The last 30 minutes (it always seems to be the last 30 minutes) Heavenly Father put some people with potential in our path. It's so crazy how simple and very important our message is. It's hard to see many walk away from it, Often, with out giving it a chance. But it is so sweet to see others experiment on the word, and find happiness.

That just about sums it up. I love you all!


Beware of Pride!
Elder Chase Matua

Teaching on a roof

With my good buddy Elder Johnson

Elder Tan on his bike